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. 2021 Oct 21;47(6):1557-1600.
doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbab054.

A Systematic Review of Cognition-Brain Morphology Relationships on the Schizophrenia-Bipolar Disorder Spectrum

James A Karantonis  1   2 , Sean P Carruthers  1   2 , Susan L Rossell  2   3 , Christos Pantelis  1   4   5 , Matthew Hughes  2 , Cassandra Wannan  1 , Vanessa Cropley  1   2 , Tamsyn E Van Rheenen  1   2
Affiliations

A Systematic Review of Cognition-Brain Morphology Relationships on the Schizophrenia-Bipolar Disorder Spectrum

James A Karantonis et al. Schizophr Bull. .

Abstract

The nature of the relationship between cognition and brain morphology in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD) and bipolar disorder (BD) is uncertain. This review aimed to address this, by providing a comprehensive systematic investigation of links between several cognitive domains and brain volume, cortical thickness, and cortical surface area in SSD and BD patients across early and established illness stages. An initial search of PubMed and Scopus databases resulted in 1486 articles, of which 124 met inclusion criteria and were reviewed in detail. The majority of studies focused on SSD, while those of BD were scarce. Replicated evidence for specific regions associated with indices of cognition was minimal, however for several cognitive domains, the frontal and temporal regions were broadly implicated across both recent-onset and established SSD, and to a lesser extent BD. Collectively, the findings of this review emphasize the significance of both frontal and temporal regions for some domains of cognition in SSD, while highlighting the need for future BD-related studies on this topic.

Keywords: cognition; cortical surface area; cortical thickness; neuroimaging; volume.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Flowchart of study selection.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Summary of the number of studies examining each index of brain morphology, per cognitive domain for each disorder. Note. BD, bipolar disorder; HC, healthy control; RO, recent-onset; SSD, schizophrenia-spectrum disorder.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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